Tomato Aspic Mold

“Tomato Aspic Mold”… You don’t have to see it or eat it to know this is awful; just saying it evokes visions of some particularly disgusting form of mildew. It goes downhill from there because Tomato Aspic Mold is edible… at least, supposedly. Thank the nice (or so we thought) folks at The Mid-Century Menu for dredging up this deservedly forgotten recipe from 1968. Looking a lot like the bastard lovechild of a starfish and a scab, this is one star-shaped comestible even the hungriest Soviet would say “nyet” to.

Michelada

Traditional Mexican michelada is basically spiced beer enlivened with chili sauce and lime juice. It’s reputed to be good hangover cure, even if said hangover was brought on by imbibing one too many micheladas. Then there’s Budweiser Chelada, a commercial distortion of the michelada concept scorned by RateBeer as scoring 0 for style and 0 overall. According to Budweiser’s ad tagline, “Enjoy the best of both worlds: a refreshing Budweiser and the unique flavor of Clamato. Drink a Red One.” You can’t make me!

As awful as beer & tomato juice beverages sound, and they DO sound awful enough to avoid drinking, brewers & bars inexplicably continue to flog a dead horse. Take the “most sent back drink of all time” at the Great Dane Pub & Brewing Co. in Madison, Wisconsin. No longer available due to lack of demand, the virulently vermilion concoction had at least one fan: Holly from the Holly Recommends blog. “Seriously, it was so good. And refreshing,” raves the presumably raving mad Holly. “Like a beer and Bloody Mary rolled into one. What’s not to like about that?” Well, for starters… everything!

Fukushima Mon Pomi d’Oro

“Pomi d’oro” means “golden apple” in Italian, and that’s the rather romantic name Italian physician and botanist Pietro Andrea Mattioli called tomatoes after European explorers brought them from the New World in the early 16th century. We’re not sure what name he would call the “mutated” monstrosity above, supposedly a tomato grown in Japan months after the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster spewed radioactive isotopes into the environment. What happened to the tumorous growth, no one can say…